Alexander McQueen Spring 2005
“Using a futuristic chess game as mise en scene, McQueen this time offers up an intricately worked and determinedly youthful collection featuring pieces that whisper of fashion fantasy although always with a typically tough edge. And so a floral print, primrose yellow baby doll dress is finished with signature leather harnessing, for example, amply demonstrating the play between power and vulnerability that the designer has by now made his own. The starting point is filmic again. This time clothes are inspired by Picnic At Hanging Rock - quintessential McQueen territory given its ultra-feminine and innocent spirit undermined by a significantly dark undercurrent. Everything from Edwardian children’s wear to embroidered fairground horses makes an appearance. The chessboard motif allows the designer to explore different types of women – Americans face Japanese on the board, redheads are placed opposite Latin Americans and so forth.”
“McQueen, as well as being a fashion designer, art-directed many photoshoots, he art-directed many films, and this film formed the backdrop to the collection Irere that told the story of a shipwreck at sea and a subsequent landfall in the Amazon. And it was peopled with characters like pirates, conquistadors, and Amazonian Indians. The film itself was shot by John Maybury and depicts a moment when a woman falls overboard in a dress that’s referred to as the “shipwreck dress.” As she’s floating down in the ocean, the strands of chiffon get tangled around her legs and arms like seaweed.”
-Andrew Bolton
(via couturefacade)
